Workshop on Sexuality

The Hope Project School has seen as many attempts at introducing sexuality in the curriculum as it has seen movements of determined resistance to it. The staff was introduced to excellent curricula, even trained on transacting it, but nothing seemed to pass the test of subtle and undefined appropriateness that was the thin red line. Like so many other ideas that were picked through and discarded, because of an inarticulated code of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, this section of possible curriculum remained at arms length. Any attempt to put the code into words by the teachers was poetic, seemingly over-emotional and frustrating for all concerned, so that the mentors, management and the teachers awkwardly avoided the issue of implementation by slipping into familiar opposite corners where each felt they were not understood. While the adults debated or avoided debate on content, methodology and context, any sessions taken with children were absorbed quickly with great enthusiasm, adding fuel to arguments by each side.

The solution that has been implemented and worked for two terms now, is neither unheralded nor brilliant in its innovation. It is different from what was done in earlier years only in that the teacher is in charge of the content. All materials available on the subject are available and well used as resource materials from which she has culled out a curriculum.

The main focus of the curriculum has shifted from the content that has to be shared to being the shifts in the awareness that the children are able to articulate. By the use of Critical Pedagogy almost a month’s time is used to generate an atmosphere of confidence and trust within the small group of students, so that the possibility of sharing reality as it is viewed by them is created. The weight of the content shared is then absorbed by the class as it begins to function as a support group. The teacher becomes the primary resource who introduces other materials as resources on demand.

The content aspect of the curriculum then emerges as a result of this interaction. It is paced by the students, as it is a response to the curiosity and inquiry of the children on the subject. The teacher does a mapping of the curriculum that emerges to the standards available at the end of each session. In the two workshops that have been taken thus far, children have exceeded expectations of content as laid down in the standard material for adolescent health and well being.